5.  The applicants were born in 1928 and 1930 respectively. The second applicant lives in Belgorod.
6.  The applicants received old-age pensions.
7.  In 1999 the applicants sued the Pension Fund Agency of Belgorod (“the Agency”) alleging that their pensions had been calculated in breach of a scheme for the calculation of retirement benefits – the “Individual Pensioner Coefficient” (“IPC”) – introduced by the Pensions Law of 1997. The applicants maintained that they were entitled to an IPC of 0.7, whilst the Agency only applied an IPC of 0.525.
8.  On 27 May 1999 the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Belgorod (“the Oktyabrskiy District Court”) dismissed the applicants’ claims as unfounded.
9.  On 27 July 1999 the Civil Section of the Belgorod Regional Court (“the Belgorod Regional Court”) set aside the above judgment on appeal and remitted the case for a new examination.
10.  On 23 September 1999 the Oktyabrskiy District Court found in the applicants’ favour. It held that the Agency had misinterpreted the Pensions Law and that the IPC to be applied in the applicants’ case should be 0.7. The court ordered the Agency to increase the applicants’ pension by RUR 642.84 and awarded them arrears of RUR 3,222.6.
11.  On 16 November 1999 the Belgorod Regional Court dismissed the defendant’s appeal, and the judgment of 23 September 1999 became final.
12.  On 3 December 1999 enforcement proceedings commenced.
13.  On 13 January 2000 the Agency requested the court to suspend the enforcement pending the outcome of the proceedings before the Supreme Court of Russia concerning similar pension cases.
14.  On 14 February 2000 the Western Circuit Court of Belgorod (Федеральный суд Западного округа г. Белгорода, “the Western Circuit Court”) dismissed the request, having established no grounds for suspending the enforcement.
15.  On an unspecified date the Agency filed a new request to postpone the execution of the judgment of 23 September 1999. On 17 March 2000 the Western Circuit Court granted the request.
16.  On 18 April 2000, upon the order of the same court, the enforcement proceedings were resumed.
17.  On an unspecified date the Agency again applied for a stay of the enforcement, referring to the lack of funds. On 19 June 2000 the Western Circuit Court rejected this request as groundless.
18.  On 29 June 2000 the acting President of the Belgorod Regional Court ordered a stay of enforcement, as on an unspecified date an extraordinary appeal had been brought against the judgment of 23 September 1999.
19.  On 29 September 2000 the President of the Belgorod Regional Court set aside the above order, following the withdrawal of the extraordinary appeal. The enforcement proceedings re-commenced.
20.  On 19 May 2000 the Agency filed an application to re-consider the judgment of 23 September 1999 on account of newly-discovered circumstances. It stated that on 29 December 1999 the Ministry of Labour had passed an instruction clarifying the application of the Pensions Law which had gone against the interpretation of that law by the courts in the applicants’ case. The Agency maintained that it had been unaware of these circumstances when the judgment of 23 September 1999 had been given and, therefore, the judgment should be re-considered.
21.  On 15 June 2000 the Western Circuit Court of Belgorod disallowed the Agency’s application, having noted that the instruction in question was not newly-discovered evidence within the meaning of the domestic law.
22.  On 10 October 2000 the Belgorod Regional Court overturned the decision of 15 June 2000 on appeal and remitted the case for a new consideration.
23.  On 2 November 2000 the Presidium of the Belgorod Regional Court set aside the decision of 10 October 2000, referring to a number of procedural irregularities and remitted the case to the appeal instance.
24.  During a new examination, on 21 November 2000, the Belgorod Regional Court again quashed the decision of 15 June 2000 and ordered the first instance to consider the case afresh.
25.  On an unspecified date the President of the Belgorod Regional Court lodged an extraordinary appeal against the decision of 27 July 1999, the judgment of 23 September 1999, the decision of 16 November 1999 and the decision of 21 November 2000.
26.  On 1 February 2001 the Presidium of the Belgorod Regional Court, having examined the extraordinary appeal in the supervisory review proceedings, quashed the aforementioned decisions and judgment and upheld the judgment of 27 May 1999 and the decision of 15 June 2000, thus reinstating the applicants’ IPC at 0.525 and annulling the previously awarded increase as well as the arrears.
27.  On an unspecified date the applicants filed a claim against the Belgorod Regional Department of the Ministry of Justice, seeking compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage for the bailiffs’ failure to enforce the judgment of 23 September 1999 within a reasonable time.
28.  On 5 April 2001 the Eastern Circuit Court of Belgorod (Федеральный суд Восточного округа г. Белгорода) rejected the action. The court found that the delays in the enforcement proceedings had not been imputable to the bailiffs.
29.  On 5 June 2001 the Belgorod Regional Court upheld this judgment on appeal.